Oblivion Power Leveling Guide

In-Progress: This guide is still in progress, I'll add information for new skills as I finish writing them.

In the natural course of the game you'll increase your skills and gain levels. But what if you want to increase certain skills quickly? There are three ways of doing this: trainers, books and using the skills. Trainers work well if you can find them, but you'll need money. Some skills are easier than others to increase, we'll go over the method for all of them.

Maximizing Your Increases

To really power level, you need to get the maximum modifier possible for each attribute. Each skill has an attribute associated with it. For example, the Armorer skill is linked to the Endurance attribute. If you increase the Armorer skill by 10 points in one level, you'll get a x5 modifier for Endurance when you level up. This means you can increase your Endurance by 5 points, instead of just one. To completely maximize each level, go for x5 modifier for three different attributes.

Do this by picking the three attributes you want to increase, then identify the skills under those attributes. You'll need 10 skill increases for each attribute. The best way to do this is by picking three of your seven major skills for 10 of the points. The other 20 will be minor skills that won't increase your level. This way you can manage the 30 increases without leveling up three times.

Attributes

Attribute

Skills

Notes

Agility

MarksmanSecuritySneak

The higher your Agility the less chance you'll be knocked down in combat.

An extremely high personality (well past 100 when including fame) can even cause bandits and other enemies not to attack you.

A high personality makes it easier to yield to guards, avoid paying for crimes and yield to other attackers.

Most of the benefits from the Personality attribute can be had using spells, money and bonuses.

Speed

AcrobaticsAthleticsLight Armor

Speed affects how fast you can run, walk and fast travel.

How far you can jump.

Strength

BladeBluntHand to Hand

Governs how much you can carry, which is five times your strength.

Governs how much damage you do with blades, blunt weapons and hand to hand.

Governs your total fatigue.

Strength above 100 won't increase the damage you do in combat, but it will affect total fatigue and how much you can carry.

Willpower

AlterationDestructionRestoration

Governs your total fatigue.

Governs how quickly you can regenerate magicka and continues to have an effect past 100 points.

Doesn't not have any effect on the strength of your spells, the amount of damage you do with spells or how much spells cost.

Trainers

Two things to keep in mind with trainers: money and level limits. The higher your level, the more money it will cost to train a new level. You're also limited to five training sessions per level. It doesn't matter what skill you train, each session counts towards your five limit per level. After that, you'll need to wait for the next level before you can increase again. Click on the link below for information on training each skill:

Increasing Skills Yourself

Aside from training, it's also possible to increase your skills by using them. This of course is how you naturally increase skills during the course of playing the game. But the natural increases are chaotic, there's no way to control what skill increases when, the skills you use most will increase. If you want to increase specific skills this way, the concept is the same, you just find an activity that will train that skill.

Keep in mind that some skills are easier to increase than others. Skills in your specialization are easier to increase. For example, if your character is specialized in combat, increasing blunt, blade or block will be easier than increasing destruction. Your seven major skills will also be easier to increase. Finally, skills that are both major skills and skills in your specialization will increase the fastest.

Ideally the activity should be specific to just that skill, so you only increase the skill you want to increase. This is easy with some skills, such as Illusion or Alteration. But other skills, such as Destruction or Block, are a little more difficult. Here are the strategies for each skill:

Books

Reading some books will increase your skills by one point. Some of these books are easy to find, others are an adventure. Books will only increase your skill once. After you read it, the book won't increase your skill again. Click on the link below to see a list of books for the skill.